Gee, James Paul. (2004). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Reviewed by Patrick Lowenthal, Regis University, & Lee Christopher, Susan Connors & Lisa O’Reilly, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences

Gee, James Paul. (2004). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 225         ISBN 1-4039-6538-2 Reviewed by Patrick Lowenthal       Regis University Lee Christopher, Susan Connors, and Lisa O’Reilly       University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center September 7, 2007 Do not let the title fool you; What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy is a fascinating yet controversial book about effective learning. In fact, the book is more about learning than video games. However, if you have ever wondered about the appeal of video games, want to try to understand the Millennials or Generation Y better, or you are thinking about becoming one of the seven million residents of Second Life, this book might be for you. By sharing his personal experiences playing a wide range of video games, as well as interviewing other gamers, Gee—a self-identified late-middle-age “baby boomer” (p. 4)—illustrates that video games are not necessarily a waste of time. In fact, he shows that effective or good video games incorporate principles of learning that are absent in many of our schools today (which could explain one’s appeal over the other). In this book, Gee identifies 36 principles of learning (see Table 1 in the Appendix to this review) that are present in effective video games and he aligns these principles to current research in cognitive science, especially sociocultural and situated learning theory (e.g., Cole, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 2003). Rather than address all 36 principles here (as the book does), this review focuses more on the big ideas presented about video games and learning. Before moving forward, for Gee, video games are not created equal. In fact he states that “if a game has poor learning principles built into its design, then it won’t get learned or played and wont sell well” (p. 6). Instead, Gee is interested in what he calls good or effective video games—that is games that build learning principles (e.g., the 36 learning principles he identified) into them. This book focuses more on the potential of video games rather than any specific game. An underlying theme of this book is that video games are not a waste of time; in fact, contrary to popular opinion, our schools (i.e., teachers, administrators, policy makers) could learn a great deal from effective video games. Gee argues that video games “operate with…principles that are better than those in many of our skill-and-drill, back-to-basics, test-them-until-they-drop schools” (p. 205). Gee begins by trying to help his reader think differently about video games. He explains that “when people learn to play video games, they are learning a new literacy” (p. 13). Rather than thinking just about reading and writing, Gee argues that there are a multiplicity of literacies and that it is time for us to think beyond print when thinking about literacy. He explains that competency in the medium of video games is one form of literacy within a semiotic domain. In other words, video games have their own sense of meaning in that players must be literate to be successful. Gee reminds the reader that meaning does not lie in words or generalities; rather meaning is actively constructed by people. But people do not construct meaning in isolation. Rather Gee places emphasis on the fact that meaning is actively constructed by people within affiliations or affinity groups (a term he prefers to community of practice). Affinity groups attempt through their content and social practices to recruit people to think, act, interact, value, and feel in certain specific ways. In this sense, they attempt to get people to learn and take on new identities, to become, for a time and place, certain types of people. In fact, society as a whole is simply the web of these many different sorts of identities and their characteristic associated activities and practices. Video games (more than traditional forms of education) successfully invite people into unique semiotic domains, which train players to enter other systems. Through various examples, Gee illustrates how video games use identity to engage learners on a deep level and get them thinking in terms of skills and competencies that are different from their own as well as reflecting on their own abilities and perspectives. Critical to the ability to have the courage to try on new identities is the capacity of video games to create a “psychosocial moratorium—that is, a learning space in which the learner can take risks where real-world consequences are lowered” (p. 62). Gee singles out the ability of video games to allow the player to try on new identities as the single most important key to the success and power of video games. Just as books and movies can help us imagine a new identity, video games enable users to transform his or her “hopes, values, and fears” (p. 200). Thus, Gee sees the virtual characters that we become during video games as a learning tool for understanding more about our world and ourselves. In addition to the ability to assume new identities, Gee points out that video games can serve as preparation for real-life learning. That is, video games incorporate a great deal of situated, experiential, and embodied learning; while these components are often absent in traditional education, they are integral parts of real-life learning. Video games effectively provide appropriate scaffolding to create a zone of proximal development for players. Good video games use multiple modalities to engage players while building on their prior knowledge. The games are designed to reward players who effectively learn to read the various modalities of the games and develop intuitive knowledge. Gee sees these skills as valuable problem-solving and learning tools and recommends that “good teachers set up … environments that guide learners and surround them with empowering objects that extend their individual efforts” (p. 110). He continues his emphasis on situated learning but stresses the importance of achieving a balance between giving learners information and guidance and the opportunity to practice their new learning. Without information and guidance, learners can spend a great deal of time trying to figure things out and perhaps even coming up with many wrong answers and concepts. Yet too much information and repetitive practice can stifle motivation. Gee contends that good video games that have survived the market (i.e., people continue to buy them) have done so because they provide appropriate scaffolding and a balance of information with practice. Gee uses the example of the video game Tomb Raider and its later series Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation to prove his point. The first part of the game serves as a surreptitious training module as the player learns how to play the game while taking on the identity of Lara Croft. Gee says, “This is what is magical about learning in good video games—and in good classrooms, too—learners are not always overtly aware of the fact that they are ‘learning,’ how much they are learning, or how difficult it is” (p. 123). Video games (like simulations in general) are also able to situate (or immerse) learners into diverse cultural and social interactions. Gee explains, One of the things that makes video games so powerful is their ability to create whole worlds and invite players to take on various identities within them. When players do this, two things can happen: On one hand, their pre-supposed perspectives on the world might be reinforced….On the other hand, through their creation of new and different worlds and characters, video games can challenge players’ taken-for-granted views about the world. (pp.140-141) While acknowledging that some games are too repugnant to consider (e.g., Ethnic Cleansing), Gee argues that video games have a unique ability to serve as a way to explore diverse cultural models and to experience the world from new perspectives. One of the video games he uses to illustrate his point is Under Ash. In this game, the hero is a young Palestinian named Ahmed who throws stones to fight Israeli soldiers and settlers. While disturbing and violent, Under Ash, like all good video games, has “the potential to raise many … questions and issues” (p. 152). Gee greatly adds to our understanding of sociocultural learning theory in his description of the sociocultural learning aspects of video games. He gives clear examples that illustrate his belief that learning is social—“something attuned to and normed by the social groups to which we belong or seek to belong” (p. 180). While these topics can often be murky and theoretical, Gee vividly illustrates the social, distributed, and reflective nature of learning. In his summary, Gee predicts increasing development in the medium of video games. While some new games will be inspirational, some will be despicable. He sees the inspirational games as being those based on good learning theory (i.e., they incorpate some, if not all, of the 36 principles), and especially those that create experiences that empower users by allowing the game player to take on a new identity and to explore new worlds. Despite its strengths, it is important to note that the intended audience for this book is unclear. At times, Gee appears to be writing for the general public instead of academics. For instance, Gee explains that “in order not to clutter the text with references, I will not insert references directly into the text . . . but will instead give citations to the literature in a bibliographical note at the end of each chapter” (p. 11). While this could simply be a “stylistic” (e.g., editorial) decision, it is strange that Gee would concern himself with cluttering the text if his primary audience were academics; in the semiotic domain of academia—academics expect text to be cluttered with citations—in fact, it is often not seen as clutter but rather legitimacy. Additionally, Gee writes about his own personal experience with video games rather than about formal experimental research. Yet at other times, he spends a great deal of time developing an academic vocabulary to discuss video games with lengthy definitions of terms such as affinity groups and projective identities while addressing the reader as “we academics” (p. 11). Wavering between being extremely informal to highly academic, Gee runs the risk of alienating both academic and general audiences. In addition, as an academic, Gee approaches video games with a very distinct conceptual / theoretical framework. As a result, this book seems to complement his other books, Social Linguistics and Literacies and The Social Mind which is beneficial if you enjoyed his other works. However, you are not going to find anything drastically different in this book than in his past. In conlusion, Gee presents a thought provoking insight into the world of video games. He provides a vibrant example of sociocultural learning theory in action and helps us account for the popularity of video games especially among young people. Gee’s ability to bring theory into clear perspective is truly a strength of this book which some may overlook because of the controversial medium. Gee is not advocating the use of video games in our schools as much as he is advocating educators to learn from and apply the 36 learning principles to their own classrooms and daily lessons. References Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. New York: Oxford University Press. About the Reviewers Patrick R. Lowenthal     Assistant Professor, Instructional Technology     School of Education and Counseling     Regis University Lee Christopher, Susan Connors, and Lisa O’Reilly     University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. Appendix Table 1. The 36 Learning Principles Active, Critical Learning Principle All aspects of the learning environment (including the ways in which the semiotic domain is designed and presented) are set up to encourage active and critical, not passive, learning. Design Principle Learning about and coming to appreciate design and design principles is core to the learning experience. Semiotic Principle Learning about and coming to appreciate interrelations within and across multiple sign systems (images, words, actions, symbols, artifacts, etc.) as a complex system is core to the learning experience. Semiotic Domains Principle Learning involves mastering, at some level, semiotic domains, and being able to participate, at some level, in the affinity group or groups connected to them. Metalevel Thinking about Semiotic Domains Principle Learning involves active and critical thinking about the relationships of the semiotic domain being learned to other semiotic domains. “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered. Committed Learning Principle Learners participate in an extended engagement (lots of effort and practice) as extensions of their real-world identities in relation to a virtual identity to which they feel some commitment and a virtual world that they find compelling. Identity Principle Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such a way that the learner has real choices (in developing the virtual identity) and ample opportunity to mediate on the relationship between new identities and old ones. There is a tripartite play of identities as learners relate, and reflect on, their multiple real-world identities, a virtual identity, and a projective identity. Self-Knowledge Principle The virtual world is constructed in such a way that learners learn not only about the domain but about themselves and their current and potential capacities. Amplification of Input Principle For little input, learners get a lot of output. Achievement Principle For learners of all levels of skill there are intrinsic rewards from the beginning, customized to each learner’s level, effort, and growing mastery and signaling the learner’s ongoing achievements. Practice Principle Learners get lots and lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring (i.e., in a virtual world that is compelling to learners on their own terms and where the learners experience ongoing success). They spend lots of time on task. Ongoing Learning Principle The distinction between learner and master is vague, since learners, thanks to the operation of the “regime of competence” principle listed next, must, at higher and higher levels, undo their routinized mastery to adapt to new or changed conditions. There are cycles of new learning, automatization, undoing automatization, and new reorganized automatization. “Regime of Competence” Principle The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge of, his or her resources, so that at those points things are felt as challenging but not “undoable.” Probing Principle Learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something); reflecting in and on this action and, on this basis, forming a hypothesis; testing this hypothesis; reprobing the world to test this hypothesis; and then accepting or rethinking the hypothesis. Multiple Routes Principle There are multiple ways to make progress or move ahead. This allows learners to make choices, rely on their own strengths and styles of learning and problem solving, while also exploring alternative styles. Situated Meaning Principle The meanings of signs (words, actions, objects, artifacts, symbols, texts, etc.) are situated in embodied experience. Meanings are not general or decontextualized. Whatever generality meanings come to have is discovered bottom up via embodied experiences. Text Principle Texts are not understood purely verbally (i.e., only in terms of the definitions of the words in the text and their text-internal relationships to each other) but are understood in terms of embodied experiences. Learners move back and forth between texts and embodied experiences. More purely verbal understanding (reading texts apart from embodied action) comes only when learners have had enough embodied experience in the domain and ample experiences with similar texts. Intertextual Principle The learner understands texts as a family (“genre”) of related texts and understands anyone such text in relation to others in the family, but only after having achieved embodied understandings of some texts. Understanding a group of texts as a family (genre) of texts is a large part of what helps the learner make sense of such texts. Multimodal Principle Meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities (images, texts, symbols, interactions, abstract design, sound, etc.), not just words. “Material Intelligence” Principle Thinking, problem solving, and knowledge are “stored” in material objects and the environment. This frees learners to engage their minds with other things while combining the results of their own thinking with the knowledge stored in material objects and the environment to achieve yet more powerful effects. Intuitive Knowledge Principle Intuitive or tacit knowledge built up in repeated practice and experience, often in association with an affinity group, counts a great deal and is honored. Not just verbal and conscious knowledge is rewarded. Subset Principle Learning even at its start takes place in a (simplified) subset of the real domain. Incremental Principle Learning situations are ordered in the early stages so that earlier cases lead to generalizations that are fruitful for later cases. When learners face more complex cases later, the learning space (the number and type of guesses the learner can make) is constrained by the sorts of fruitful patterns or generalizations the learner has found earlier. Concentrated Sample Principle The learner sees, especially early on, many more instances of fundamental signs and actions than would be the case in a less controlled sample. Fundamental signs and actions are concentrated in the early states so that learners get to practice them often and learn them well. Bottom-up Basic Skills Principle Basic skills are not learned in isolation or out of context; rather, what counts as a basic skill is discovered bottom up by engaging in more and more of the game/domain or game/domains like it. Basic skills are genre elements of a given type of game/domain. Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-Time Principle The learner is given explicit information both on-demand and just-in-time, when the learner needs it or just at the point where the information can best be understood and used in practice. Discovery Principle Overt telling is kept to a well-thought-out minimum, allowing ample opportunity for the learner to experiment and make discoveries. Transfer Principle Learners are given ample opportunity to practice, and support for, transferring what they have learned earlier to later problems, including problems that require adapting and transforming that earlier learning. Cultural Models about the World Principle Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about some of their cultural models regarding the world, without denigration of their identities, abilities, or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models that may conflict with or otherwise relate to them in various ways. Cultural Models about Learning Principle Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about their cultural models of learning and themselves as learners, without denigration of their identities, abilities, or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models of learning and themselves as learners. Cultural Models about Semiotic Domains Principle Learning is set up in such a way that learners come to think consciously and reflectively about their cultural models about the particular semiotic domain they are learning, without denigration of their identities, abilities, or social affiliations, and juxtapose them to new models about this domain. Distributed Principle Meaning/knowledge is distributed across the learner, objects, tools, symbols, technologies, and the environment. Dispersed Principle Meaning/knowledge is dispersed in the sense that the learner shares it with others outside the domain/game, some of whom the learner may rarely or never see face-to-face. Affinity Group Principle Learners constitute an “affinity group,” that is, a group that is bonded primarily through shared endeavors, goals, and practices and not shared race, gender, nation, ethnicity, or culture. Insider Principle The learner is an “insider,” “teacher,” and “producer” (not just a “consumer”) able to customize the learning experience and domain/game from the beginning and throughout the experience. (Gee, 2004, pp. 207-212)